For businesses large and small, relying on a cloud-based collaboration and productivity suite such as Microsoft Office 365 is becoming the norm. Enhancing productivity in your organisation is vital to get ahead in 2017 - and using Office 365 can help, if it's used right...

Top 10 time saving technologies

Handy tools for increasing workplace efficiency

Last
week's list caused a certain amount of comment to the effect that we
shouldn't be encouraging time-wasting in the office. In the interest of balance,
we've decided to provide the antidote.

Technology has been superb at saving time for companies. This has had some
downsides - word processing software put a generation of secretaries out of a
job and the print unions were shocked to find most of their jobs were out of
date - but the advantages have outweighed the losses.

This was a tough list to compile. Shaun and I had some serious disagreements
but, thankfully, we maintained a professional demeanour and didn't get chucked
out of our
favourite
local Thai restaurant. Kudos to our ever-forgiving bar manager who
understands that arguments are par for the course when we work out the lists
each week.

Like any list it isn't perfect so, if you have better tips, please use the
comment feature at the end of this article to let us know.

Honourable
mention: WikipediaShaun Nichols: I had a tough sell getting Iain to agree with
this one. After all, last week we put the online encyclopaedia site on our list
of the 10 worst time wasters.

When used in small doses, however,
Wikipedia
can be a very useful tool. When looking up small bits of information such as
dates, ages or definitions, Wikipedia can be a quick way to get information that
would otherwise be rather tedious to track down.

That's not to say Wikipedia is an absolute authority. With the wisdom of many
comes the squabbles of a few, and sometimes Wikipedia entries can contain
information that is less than reliable, and occasionally outright wrong.

Still, if you're not writing a term paper or news article, Wikipedia can be a
nice reference for looking up specifics.

Iain Thomson: OK, so I agreed to have Wikipedia as an honourable
mention, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

I'm glad you added that last sentence otherwise I would have had to wield the
pointy stick of editorial justice to remind you that Wikipedia is not fact. You
have to check each snippet against an unimpeachable source before dedicating it
to print.

Wikipedia is a damn good source of information but, like any source, it can't
be taken on face value. You have to check and double check, and for that reason
I'm still not sure it's a time saver for anything other than pub arguments.

Honourable
Mention: Remote workingIain Thomson: Personally I would have liked to see this higher
on the list but, as Shaun pointed out, it's not a specific technology but an
amalgam of techniques.

But a time saver it certainly is. The average commute time is around 45
minutes, so that's an hour and a half a day spent travelling. This isn't to say
that commuting time is wasted - you can nap, read or listen to music - but it's
still time spent doing something you don't need to do.

Now that broadband in the home is commonplace and laptops make working almost
anywhere an
odd
reality there's little need to go into work every day. Many jobs can be
performed from home and the worker needs only to pop into the office for
meetings and to consult files. Of course, this doesn't work for every job, but
you'd be amazed at the number of people in the service professions who can do
it.

Home working doesn't only save time. Companies' biggest fixed cost is usually
the building they occupy and, with fewer people in the office, the company
doesn't need quite so much expensive space. Workers save on travel costs, can
cook their own lunches rather than rely on the local sandwich shop and don't
need heating or air-conditioning at work. All in all it saves time, space and
money, so home working is a winner in my book.

Shaun Nichols: With gas prices and train fares rising steadily,
telecommuting is not only a time saver, it's a money saver too. Add to that the
money saved from not having to buy lunch, and dry cleaning costs for work
clothes, and you've got a pretty good way to significantly reduce expenses over
the long haul.

Many people claim that working from home decreases efficiency because there
are so many distractions. In small doses, however, telecommuting is actually
more efficient. It's easier to focus when you're relaxed, and it's hard to be
any more relaxed then while at home. Additionally, you tend to be less likely to
waste away the hours on many of the online vices from our previous list.

After a few days it does become a bit difficult to work from home, however.
When you live and work in the same place the two can often overlap, and focusing
on the job gets tough. Additionally, sitting at home alone all day can get
pretty lonely. After a while you actually do start to crave the social
interaction of working in an office.